


Shostakovich - Piano concerto No.2

by lesbianshibs



Category: Naruto
Genre: Iruka is a toy amputee with one leg in the clearance section, Kakashi is a perfect dancer that performs every hour on the dot, Light Angst, M/M, Music Box Ballerina Kakashi, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Toy Soldier Iruka
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:00:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29347035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianshibs/pseuds/lesbianshibs
Summary: The other toys were jealous. Kakashi got more attention from The Owner than all of them combined, and he would never get off his high horse to have fun with them. He’d dance on the hour, every hour, for five minutes, then laze against the grandiose clock directly behind him. All the other toys would turn away, making a show of ignoring Kakashi’s beautiful display.Except Iruka. He loved to watch the ballerina dance.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi/Umino Iruka
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25
Collections: A Very Special KakaIru Exchange!





	Shostakovich - Piano concerto No.2

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Melk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melk/gifts).



> Melk!! This piece is based off of my favourite classic Disney film of all time: Fantasia 2000. The beautiful musical work of "Shostakovich - Piano concerto No.2" tells the story of a young toy soldier and a gorgeous ballerina, and it's inspired me through the ages. Parts of the plot are slightly outdated, so I took the concept that I loved and ran with it for this piece. I was so excited when you requested a "classic tale" for your exchange, and I really hope you like it! Please copy the link below and watch the performance (before or after the read), It'll give you such a beautiful picture. 
> 
> https://youtu.be/gFanayBhyeA?t=77
> 
> Enjoy!!

Every night, the toys of Sarutobi’s Game Shop came to life. One by one their little wooden limbs creak awkwardly, slowly awakening after hours of sitting upon shelves. Train models began their rounds across the tiled flooring, stringless marionettes jumped onto their colourful rocking horses, plush dolls tidied their tiny porcelain homes. Some jumped off their stands and ran around the shop, off to make friends with all sorts of other toys. 

Kakashi the ballerina never did. He was a beautiful figurine, fair porcelain skin glinting with the flickering candlelight. His long legs and torso were adorned with an extravagant tulle jumpsuit that wove around his body like a delicate flower. Two hand-crafted pointe shoes were commissioned just for him, the rosy silk ribbons constantly wrapped around his legs perfectly. Silver hair was made of the finest threads, a tiny beauty mark painted just below his lip. Kakashi was alluring, expensive and  _ not  _ for sale. The Owner cherished his angelic figurine, making sure to shine him daily and steer away any grimey hands. 

The other toys were jealous. Kakashi got more attention from The Owner than all of them combined, and he would never get off his high horse to have fun with them. He’d dance on the hour, every hour, for five minutes, then laze against the grandiose clock directly behind him. All the other toys would turn away, making a show of ignoring Kakashi’s beautiful display. 

Except Iruka. He loved to watch the ballerina dance. 

Directly above and behind Kakashi’s elegant clock stage were towers of shelves. They lined the entire back wall of the store, and toys crowded every inch— nearly teetered off. They had broken parts, out of season designs. This was the clearance section, and Iruka had been there for many years. The only toy soldier not scooped up by a child with a military father, the only toy soldier who came without a musket, the only toy soldier with only  _ one  _ measly plastic leg. 

Iruka couldn’t climb down his shelf. He could barely leave the safe confines of his crumpled box on his own. The other toys never noticed him, let alone tried to help him down. So, his nightly routines consisted of pushing open his package and leaning over the edge precariously to catch the best angle of Kakashi’s beautiful dance. The silver haired ballerina was the only other toy that had been here as long as Iruka, and although it was for different reasons… the soldier  _ dreamed  _ of having some sort of a connection through the shared experience. 

And… there was the other thing that brought them together. Kakashi’s left foot never left the floor of his stage. No matter the movement, whether it be a kick or a turn or a run, that foot didn’t lift off of the ground. He didn’t jump, either. Because every piece of hourly music the clock churned out was methodical and slow, perfect for adagio. Kakashi’s body would set a leisurely pace, gentle arms flowing in flawless arcs and legs sweeping with a purposeful calmness. 

Just like now, at 5:04am. At the climax of his early morning performance, Kakashi was still moving like a fish in water. His legs flew across the stage as he waltzed, body conjuring a faultless flavour that drifted to whomever watched and completely sedated their mind. Tulle spun delicatiately as the doll’s torso spiralled in directions Iruka didn’t know porcelain could go. Just as the final note struck, Kakashi tipped his chest forward. Now, Iruka knew this dance well. He technically knew how  _ all  _ the dances went, he’s surely memorized them all by now. But this one was special. It was the last dance Kakashi displayed every night before all the toys settled back in, preparing for The Owner to open shop at a brisk 6:01am like usual. It was the last dance Iruka saw before having to return to his plastic prison for the next fifteen hours. 

As Kakashi shifted his front forward, his arms peeled away from his body and behind himself like he had enormous feathered wings. His right leg floated up with no resistance, bending at the knee in a gorgeous extension. And he balanced. Iruka held his breath, leaning out of his box slightly to get a better view. Every night in this exact pose, balanced on the tiptoes of one foot, Kakashi balanced. He stayed there for well after the song ended, most likely letting his last free performance of the night sink into his delicate, cold skin. Then he’d slowly pull himself up and out, lowering the leg and fluttering open his eyes. Bring himself back to where he was instead of wherever his mind brought him in the past five minutes. 

Iruka felt himself lean even further over the edge of his shelf, hoping to catch the moment Kakashi let himself relax. He would always lower from his tiptoes, roll his ankles against the floor as if his joints were those of a human’s, brush at his hair slightly as if his perfectly styled locks had moved even an inch. Those moments made him seem less perfect . Instead of a distant, elusive diamond… he could potentially be a just normal toy. Iruka leaned even further forward. Kakashi ended a bit further back today, his lower body partially obscured by the silver clock. Maybe if he squinted hard enough from here, he could catch the ballerina wring his hands out, or shake his right foot to relieve it of nonexistent stress. Just a bit further, Iruka was almost there, he could just see the backs of Kakashi’s tulle covered calves. 

Almost in slow motion, Iruka felt his entire box tip over the side of the shelf. 

He heard himself shout as he flew through the air, little wooden limbs reaching for anything to stop the fatal drop. But the tiled floor grew closer and closer. Iruka screwed his eyes shut, curled his body inwards, and hoped for his demise to be quick and sweet. 

Until something wrapped around his wrist and squeezed. A toy must have grabbed for him as he fell past a table! His relief was prominent but short lived as he felt his body halt midair, bouncing so hard he feared his arm would rip off. The momentum of his fall sent him swinging forward and crashing into the trim of the table face first. He thought he heard something crack. The grip on his wrist hugged tighter as his wooden body went limp.

“Give me your other hand, idiot!” A voice snapped from above him. The reality of the situation suddenly slammed into Iruka at full force. He’s hanging high above the ground and only held up by a single toy’s hand. He flung his other arm upwards, unable to tear his eyes away from the tiled floor beneath him. A cold hand gripped his other wrist, and before he could even blink, he was violently yanked up and over the edge of the table. He let his forehead rest against the cold surface for a moment in an attempt to regain his composure, mind still reeling from the near death experience. The cold hands of his savior slowly pulled away,and Iruka heard a quiet chuckle. 

“Are you stupid?”

“Not usually,” Iruka groaned, pulling his heavy arms towards his chest and pressing his palms to the table. He slowly pushed himself to his hands and knees, letting his head hang heavy between his shoulders. The top of his tall black hat dropped to the floor. 

“Watch it,” The voice said. No malice was hidden behind the words, maybe there was even a small laugh. Iruka felt his head tilt forward slightly, a pressure pulling from the top of his head. Was this toy lifting the top of his hat off the ground? “Your hat is made of wood. If you drop it, it’ll scrape my stage.”

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry!” Iruka snapped his neck up immediately, one hand flying up to smack the side of his hat. “I didn’t…”

Iruka let his sentence fade , words tucking themselves back under his tongue as his jaw hung open. Sitting on his knees, only an inch away from the brunette, was Kakashi the ballerina. He looked positively angelic, even more so up close than he ever did from far away. The candlelight warmed his cool features wondrously, yellows and oranges flickering over the left side of his body. Kakashi had arched one perfect silver eyebrow, as if to silently question his sudden silence. They locked eyes. Large and plain brown irises meeting unsettlingly deep black ones.

“You’re… Kakashi the ballerina,” Iruka whispered breathlessly. 

“And you’re the soldier with one leg?” Kakashi replied back, almost instantly. The pitch of his voice tipped upward near the end of his sentence, but his gaze remained steady. Asking a question as if he didn’t know the answer. 

“H-how do you know that?” Iruka stammered out, shifting his weight back to let his rear hit the ground. His right leg splayed out in front of him, while his hand remained on his hat. If dolls could have headaches, he was sure he’d have one right now.

“You watch me dance every night,” Kakashi said indifferently, ceramic skin clinking together as he crossed his arms. 

“What!?” Iruka slammed both hands down onto the stage, shaking his head wildly. “I do not!”

“Seriously? You practically hang over the edge of your box every night. It’s not exactly the definition of subtle,” Kakashi quipped, smirk pulling at the corner of his lips. His head tilted to the side slightly, and Iruka watched a single piece of silver hair gracefully fall out of place.

“I… Uhm— You…” Iruka stuttered, eyebrows pinching together as he looked anywhere but the other doll. His fingers curled into the ground roughly, and he heard a dull scratching sound.

“ _ Hey _ \- I said stop doing that!” Kakashi said, shooting his hands forward to grab Iruka’s. Icy porcelain fingers wrapped around wooden ones, lifting them into the air. “Our bodies were cured differently. You’re going to ruin the flooring.”

“Wood… And Porcelain are different?” Iruka questioned, eyes shooting up to meet Kakashi’s again. He tried to ignore how the other toy didn’t let go of his hands. 

“Wow.” Kakashi’s shoulders shook with light laughter. He lifted his hips off his heels and wobbled forward, plopping back down when he was between Iruka’s knees. He let Iruka’s right hand slide away completely, and grabbed his left with both of his own, turning his wooden palm to the ceiling. “You’re carved from… more reasonably priced wood. Toy soldiers always are. There’s a lot of you being made in a big factory, so they aren’t going to go out of their way to make you expensive or special. Me, on the other hand… I’m handmade. A pottery specialist used overpriced china clay to craft my tiny body and sealed me with the best ceramic cure on the market. You’re constructed from heavy pieces, I’m hollow. Your clunky body weighs down your jagged edges into the ground, while I practically float across the surface.”

“Should I feel offended by any of that?” Iruka huffed out a pained laugh, eyes glued to his hand. Kakashi had been delicately dragging his fingers over the brunette’s skin the entire time, simple and smooth movements having such a deep contrast to his sharp words. 

“Yes. Although honestly… I’m a bit jealous…” Kakashi whispered. Iruka felt his whole body stiffen. In what world would  _ he  _ have something that the ballerina didn’t? They let silence wash over their conversation for a short moment, the sounds of glass skin dragging across wood being the only thing to flood their senses. Kakashi blinked once before lifting his eyes up to see the other toy. Iruka was already looking at him. “You’re sturdy. Even if I had let you fall back there, you might’ve only gotten a chip. If I make a mistake… botch just one landing… It’s over for me.”

“Is that why you never jump?” Iruka said in a hushed tone. The ballerina stayed silent, striking gaze hardening ever so slightly at the question. His ceramic eyebrows twitched slightly. He took his time in speaking, and Iruka briefly wondered if he should have kept that question to himself. He slowly attempted to retract his hand from the soft grip, but the ballerina clamped his hands down to prevent him from drawing away. 

“No. I have a magnet in my foot,” Kakashi stated, tilting his chin up slightly. He didn’t seem angry or surprised, not like Iruka assumed he’d be. In fact from the small tilted grin forming on his face, one could almost think he thought it amusing. “I almost got stolen a few years ago, The Owner had it implanted to prevent another incident. It's a high grade, the strongest kind on the market. You could barely detach it with a factory sized magnet, it’s been tested.”

“That’s… Is that good or bad?” Iruka asked. 

“I’m neutral on it, in all honesty. But it restricts my dancing a lot. No turns on the right, no kicks on the left. No small jumps, definitely no big jumps. They couldn’t remove it without taking my entire foot off, even then my quality would drop leaps and bounds,” Kakashi said, smiling nonchalantly as he tilted his head to the side. 

“I… Uhm…” Iruka broke eye contact with the other toy, jerking his head away to glare pointedly at the floor. He could still see Kakashi out of the corner of his eye, grin gracing his blemishless face. In a last ditch attempt to save his dignity, Iruka screwed his eyes shut. “When I first saw you dancing, a c-couple years ago…”

“Well look at that,” Kakashi said in a teasing tone, leaning forward into Iruka’s space. “I didn’t know that toys could blush! Look at your cheeks, they’re glowing pink!”

“H-huh!?” Iruka shouted, snapping his eyes open and scrambling over, twisting his body around to try and catch a glimpse of his appearance in the clock’s reflection. “Is that even possible? Should I be worried!?”

“Oh my  _ lord,  _ are you for real?” The ballerina cackled from behind him. Iruka whipped around to see Kakashi curled forward and clutching at his stomach, shoulders shaking with the force of his laughs. “You were about to launch into this incredibly moving speech about how pretty I was or whatever, and you should have seen the  _ look  _ on your face!”   
  


“That was so rude!” Iruka protested, flopping back on his rear and crossing his arms. A strand of old brown yarn flopped onto his face as he sulked. “I wasn’t even going to compliment you anyways!”

“Sure you weren’t, pal,” Kakashi rolled his eyes, placing his hands on the ground and crawling towards where Iruka had scrambled off to. Only about an inch away. 

“I was  _ going  _ to say that I first thought you were like me,” Iruka huffed, turning his face away as the ballerina came closer.

“Don’t be silly. You’re wood, I’m porce-” Kakashi began to say in that perfect, knowitall voice. 

“I’m not stupid, I know that now!” Iruka snapped his head around to make eye contact with the ballerina, whose face was yet again in his personal space. This time though, his expression was… bewildered. As if he hadn’t expected the soldier to be so straightforward with him. “I thought you only had one leg.”

“Me? Have… One leg?” Kakashi said slowly, as if testing the risky waters of an unexplored ocean. Iruka took a deep breath before replying. 

“I was made and sent off to the toy shop with one leg. I wasn’t dropped in the box, I wasn’t broken then returned. I was made this way. I’d hoped that maybe my placement on the…  _ Clearance _ shelf was for something else. Maybe the company that made me was no longer in business, or my style was outdated,” Iruka’s eyes flickered down to his right leg, a little white stump that was only half as long as the left. “You were balancing when I first saw you dance. Hovering on one leg for minutes. I thought that maybe… the most sought after toy in the shop was just like me.”

“Then I came down,” Kakashi finished for him. He was sitting on his knees again, hands neatly folded in his lap. 

“Yes. You put your foot down,” Iruka bit the inside of his cheek. He tilted his head down. Another strand of yarn fell against his forehead. “I now know you well enough to understand that you simply… Love to balance.”

“That’s very sweet of you to say,” Kakashi breathed out, voice barely above a whisper. He seemed… Awkward. Like he wanted to curl up in a ball and disappear forever. He reached his right hand forward, fingers barely a millimeter away from the other toy’s wooden nose. “May I?”   
  


Iruka nodded quickly, closing his eyes yet again almost on instinct. He felt the smooth porcelain grace the wood of his forehead and brush the fallen yarn back up into his hat. The soldier expected the hand to drift away once it’s job was completed, but the pressure on his face remained. He heard a sharp intake of breath, but didn’t dare to open his eyes. The pressure drifted across his forehead to his temple, then down to his cheekbone. It stayed there for a long while from the soldier’s perspective, but in reality it was maybe only a second. Slowly, Iruka felt Kakashi draw a line across the centre of his face. From one cheekbone to the next, directly over his nose. Kakashi said something, but he had no idea what. 

“What?” Iruka muttered, scared that if he spoke too loud he’d ruin the little moment they’d created between the two of them. 

“You’re cracked,” Kakashi whispered, finger still pressing lightly into the soldier's wooden skin.

“I’m… Wait, what?” Iruka peeled his eyes open. The porcelain doll didn’t reply, he simply lowered his hands to wooden shoulders and twisted them slightly. Guiding Iruka back to the clock. 

Iruka let the other doll steer his torso towards his reflection. As soon as his face was in view, he shakily lifted a single wooden hand to drift over his face. Searching. The candlelight flickered unevenly, making it hard to decipher any intricate details. But right there, nearly along the direction of the wood grain… was a thin crack that spanned across his nose from cheekbone to cheekbone. It must’ve been from when Kakashi caught him and he slammed into the table. Iruka’s seen himself before in his box’s plastic reflection, he knew what he looked like. Honestly, the crack wasn’t that bad. Hardly noticeable really. It’s probably why he didn’t see it the first time he looked. 

What he was more concerned with was Kakashi. Neither had said a word for a good long while. The doll was perched over his shoulder, eyes flashing between the reflection and Iruka. He had a pinched look on his face, eyebrows creased together and eyes alight with worry. Out of all the times he’s seen him, even from far away… Iruka has never seen the ballerina as expressive as he had been tonight. Laughter, teasing, worry. All emotions he had never seen grace this stage before. Iruka turned his head to the right, leveling his eyes with Kakashi’s.

“I don’t think it’s that bad, is it?” Iruka said, barely above a whisper. 

“That’s… It?” Kakashi breathed out slowly, eyebrows pinching together as tightly as they could.

“What do you mean? It’s just a crack,” Iruka chuckled lightly. He shifted his shoulders towards the ballerina, reaching up to touch the crevice on his face. “Is it that bad?”

“No!  _ No _ , It’s not bad. At all,” Kakashi said, retracting his hands from the other toy’s shoulders and settling them in his lap. Iruka followed the movement with his gaze. 

“What do you need to say?” The toy soldier questioned, and he couldn’t help but let a small snort. “You obviously have something on your mind.”

“I… ” Kakashi murmured, looking up into the brown wooden eyes. 

“ _ I, _ What?” Iruka prompted.

“The magnet wasn’t built into me to prevent robbery. I tried to land a grand  jeté. My… My porcelain cracked. My ribbons cover it now so you can’t see it, but there’s a thin scraggly line around my ankle from where I landed. The Owner thought I was almost stolen, so he got the magnet implanted,” Kakashi tilted his head again. He’d done that a few times now, tilted his head when he said something that had a deeper meaning behind it. Iruka reminded himself to keep note of that. “And… You’re just so  _ standard-  _ No, that came out wrong. You’re normal. Common. Yet you’re so pure and real and awkward. You surprise me, and make me feel emotions that I haven’t felt with anyone else  _ ever.  _ This shop is filled with petty little toys that are jealous of something they could never understand.” 

Iruka let the doll speak. He’d never seen him so much as utter a single word in all his years of watching, so the toy soldier thought that maybe he needed to let it all out. So Iruka stayed quiet. He wanted to let him finish on his own time. 

“I’m so scared of not being The Owner’s favourite doll. It’s all I’ve ever had, all I’ve ever  _ been, _ ” Kakashi pleaded into empty air, looking away. He took a deep breath in and puffed up his cheeks, holding air in his nonexistent lungs. Eventually the ballerina sighed, releasing all the pent up oxygen and collapsing his chest. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted all the other toys to think of me as. Unbreakable. And yet you show up and make me feel so normal. I don’t want you to think that I’m some sort of pretentious diva. I’m not perfect.”

Kakashi was hunched over. Legs splayed out messily in front of him, left leg twisted at an uncomfortable angle so his foot was still attached to the ground. His tulle was out of place slightly and Kakashi didn’t even bother to fix it, too busy watching his fingers dance over each other. Small  _ clinks _ from his skin bounced into the empty air around them. He looked anxious. Fretful, even. 

“I don’t think you’re perfect at all. In fact, I think I like you even better now that I know you’re just like me.”


End file.
